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Monday, May 7, 2012

Fairy Feet

That must
be the question thousands of unborn girls must be yearning to ask their parents…

Technically,
female foeticide is defined as aborting the female foetus after sex
determination test or pre-natal diagnostic test which includes:

1)Ultrasonography

2)Foetoscopy

3)Placental tissue sampling

4)Amniocentesis

In simple words, it is nothing but wanton
killing of girls even before they are born. What fuels this desire? Why do
people not want girls? Do we not call them ‘lakshmi’ in the Indian tradition? Then
why do people do it? Who does it? Who helps them along? The questions are
endless…the answers slow in coming.

The problem
of female foeticide is not new to India. It is infact older than the country in
years. It began way back in the pre- independence era. A girl child has always
been thought of as a burden. Her birth is rarely celebrated. Her life, if she
gets one, is littered with thorns… why?

This
trend originally started in parts of Northern India like Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh and Haryana. From there, it spread like a virus to the rest of the
country. Today, only a few states like Andhra Pradesh are untouched by this
evil.

If we
look at the child sex ratios over the past few years, we’ll see a surprising
trend. This ratio gives us the number of girls born for every thousand boys
born in the country.

In the
2001 census, the highest child sex ratio has been reported in Mizoram (971
females against 1000 males) and Meghalaya (970).

Notably,
Punjab and Haryana, which have traditionally seen low sex ratio, have recorded
an increasing trend but still remained at the bottom of the list. Haryana has
830 female children and Punjab 846 against per 1000 male child.

Haryana's
Jhajjar (774 females) and Mahendragarh (778 females) districts have the lowest
sex ratio while Lahul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh has the highest
sex ratio (1,013 females).

In the
2011 census, Kerala with 1084 has the highest sex ratio followed by Puducherry
with 1038. Daman and Diu has the lowest sex ratio of 618.

These statistics
give us a peek only into the number of girls born…what about those who couldn’t
make it into this world? If official figures are to be believed, around 3 crore
girls have been aborted…but trust me, this number must be way more in reality.

So who
does it? Is it the uneducated, lower income group or people like us? People who
have all the comforts and luxuries in the world? People who are well- educated
and should, ideally, not discriminate against unborn girls on basis of gender?
It is the latter. How do you think pre-natal sex determination to be possible
without the use of the latest technology and money? It obviously cannot happen
without an organized sector involving medical experts, business enterprises and
of course, couples craving for boys. Yes, that is what it is- a multi-million
industry with no limits on the profits. (I’m sometimes surprised how we can
come up with such impressively objective definitions and terms.)

Over the
past decades various NGOs like Jagruti, Centre of Social Research and Naari
Sudhaar Andolan have taken up this cause. Then be it through street plays like
Apoorn, candle light vigils, silent marches, campaigns, sloganeering, fasts and
dharnas...they have tried to get the message across. Thousands of activists
have given their life for this issue. But has it really had any effect? Have we
really learnt a lesson? No…why else would such cases still be reported then?

In the
recent uproar over the issue, everybody missed one point though… female
foeticide is not always done under pressure. Women do abort their girls
willingly. And it is generally not because of medical reasons or because giving
birth to a girl is a way too expensive affair for them. Why do they do it then?
Being females themselves, why do they deny life to another girl?

The reasons
are numerous…from a simple craving for a boy to societal norms and pressures. The
perpetrators of this crime have a zillion excuses for their deed. But then, if
you listen to their reasoning, you’ll be forced to think are they really wrong? In the words of the woman who does our laundry:

"The government
does support birth-control measures. How is this any different? Is aborting only
a female foetus a crime?"

The more
we think of it, the more we get entangled in this web of questions. It’ll take
us sometime to answer those million un-answered voices…

2 comments:

on female foeticide - "It is not only the girl child that is killed it is the "mother" that dies"

BUT ! The government does support birth-control measures. How is this any different? Tell me how are they same ! and let this answer come from an educated and well informed point of view and not as "the voice of the unaware" !

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At first look, I'm extremely normal. Well, I look the same at second look too! (They tell me I don't even look like an engineer!) I love each moment that life offers me, and the people it is filled with. Taking one day at a time, I believe in giving my best. A dreamer at heart, I hope my humble, non-important opinion can someday make even a grain of a difference in someone's life. Till then, it's me and you and our world of words!